Former Director of UNESCO ‘s International Bureau of Education: “the truth of Chinese culture”

PITTSBURGH—Shen Yun Performing Arts Touring Company held its first performance at Pittsburgh’s Benedum Center for the Performing Arts, Feb. 15.

Among the audience was University of Pittsburgh professor emeritus, former director of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva, and former education department director at UNESCO, Dr. Seth Spaulding, who said that the show helped him understand many truths about China that he had not known.

He listed three things about Chinese culture that he learned from Shen Yun: “The first is that Chinese culture contains belief in gods. It’s not atheistic. I feel that it is a culture founded on the Buddhist school.”

“Second, from Shen Yun’s dance programs, I saw the spirit of the Chinese people. This spirit originates from morality, and draws on the power of morality to overcome difficulty and evil. It uses righteousness to conquer the wicked.”

Dr. Spaulding said that the third thing he realized was that Chinese culture was a beautiful heritage.

“This can be seen from the dances in Shen Yun. The performer’s postures, movements, expressions were so beautiful and graceful. The rhythm, the colors, the entire synergy were all so perfect,” he said, “This is something modern art cannot compare with. I often attend performances of all types, for example ballets. After seeing Shen Yun, I don’t want to watch modern performing arts anymore.”

Dr. Seth Spaulding was the former director of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva, former education department director at UNESCO, and emeritus professor of Administrative and Policy Studies at University of Pittsburgh. He has visited China multiple times during his career in education.

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Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world's premier classical Chinese dance and music company, established in New York in 2006. It performs classical Chinese dance, ethnic and folk dance, and story-based dance, with orchestral accompaniment and solo performers.
For 5,000 years, divine culture flourished in the land of China. Through breathtaking music and dance, Shen Yun is reviving this glorious culture. Shen Yun, or 神韻, can be translated as: “The beauty of divine beings dancing.”

Following the lead taken by some media and other organizations, we are now also referring to the coronavirus as "the CCP virus," as it is the Chinese Communist Party's mismanagement and cover-up that has led to the global pandemic.